My wife was the first voter in our precinct this morning; I was number 518 this afternoon about 5:30 PM. It was not a particularly unusual wait for a presidential election. Of course, this is an overwhelmingly Republican county, so this does not mean much, in a state where Romney did not really need to do anything to be sure of carrying our electoral votes.
I am not very hopeful about the future of our country. Even if Romney wins, it is going to be a squeaker, I think, It appears that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate, and more important, control of the dinosaur media. If Obama wins, I can write off any prospect of ever working in the private sector again, although it isn't much more hopeful if Romney wins. It isn't just my age, and that Java, SQL, Javascript are not in demand in the Boise area, but also that our economy is going flat under this accumulated debt that realistically, no Congress can fix without losing the next election.
I would encourage anyone under 30 who has anything on the ball to consider a move to Canada or Australia -- countries that do not seem intent on self-destruction.
The only good news of the day is my wrists. While there is some arthritis involved, it appears that much of this pain is weakness in my rotator cuff muscles. My doctor in California gave me some exercises to do for this, which are effectively an isometric exercise that strengthens them, and in some obscure way, reduces the pain down the arms.
UPDATE: This is looking increasingly bad. I hope young people look forward to a future with expensive but available health insurance, but no jobs.
UPDATE 2: It looks like my Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger stock will recover. Small consolation, in a future that, if we are lucky, will end up looking like Road Warrior.
Clayton, when the inflamation is reduced, the impingement on your nerves is reduced, lower the pain felt.
ReplyDeleteYour wrist pain was likely either referred pain, or something induced by the proximity of your rotator cuff lesion to your nerve.
Pat,
fiend of Joe Leach
Australia is firmly on the path to becoming an eco-fascist state.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like an Obama win, although Rove at Fox is expressing doubts at this minute...
ReplyDeleteIf this holds up, we lose...
Our economy
Our promising energy independnece
Our constitution, as the "living constitution" types become the majority in SCOTUS
Our position as a major power
And it may be worse... in foreign affairs... Iran is more likely to get the bomb, and with that, the world will go up in flames.
This is *really* bleak.
I know Australia is headed that way, but what do you think is going to happen with EPA's CO2 as air pollution ruling in Obama's second term? America was the last best hope, but there may be advantages to being further back from the insanity of where this bankruptcy is going to take us.
ReplyDeleteOne thought:
ReplyDeleteHow much permanent damage will Four More Years do?
I.e. new EPA regs aren't technically permanent.
Iran getting the bomb sort of is (it could also "un-permenet a lot of things like EPA regs if one of them is used on the capitol of the Great Satan).
Changes to people's mindsets and all, frequently (surely a large part of why we're here today, the left has had our children since before the mid-50's (Why Johnny Can't Read was published in 1955), so why are we surprised?)
Lower birthrates and the like (especially as the old social contract is shattered) ... which are also the definitive death of the welfare start absent new technology, since it can't survive a sufficiently bad ratio of producers to consumers (originally not thought to be a great problem since few would live long enough to collect much).
(I don't count the consequences of deficit spending; that and its denouncement were going to happen anyway sooner or later; now, the good thing is that Bush will be to blame instead of Romney if it happens in the next 4 years, the bad, Obama will likely be in charge when it happens.)
Falling asleep; more later. I'll just close with this note on not trusting polling (it's from a Tweet):
Jedediah Bila @JedediahBila
I always hear "We are a center-right country." No. A center-right country does not elect Barack Obama twice. Time to re-evaluate.
Revealed preferences and all that.
Then again, Romney was no conservative, "severe" or not (one wonders if that lie among others like it cost him the election?).
Clayton, I fear that all we can hope for is that he screws things up badly quickly, so we can elect a Republican Senate in 2014, which is very unlikely. And it's horrible when the only hope is a disaster!
ReplyDeleteI guess we can hope that he will go for a legacy, and move towards the middle. But everything he has done, and everything wee have learned about the man (no thanks, MSM) indicates he is a hard core leftist and will continue to advance the hard left project to destroy the Constitution, destroy our civil liberties, and continue their successful propandizing and divisive policies. It reminds me of Stalin who set groups against each other. Scary.
Otherwise, unless he was just playing the environmentalists, we are going to see the most extreme environmentalist policies we can imagine.
The CO2 source rules will *crush* us - destroying our economy and raising energy prices (and other prices) dramatically.
Frac'ing (really, horizontal drilling), the bright promise for our energy future, will be regulated into irrelevance.
We could just get another Civil War in the next four years and maybe that's for the best. Sort of like as a fire is needed to clear away dead and old growth in a forest and promote new growth such a war would clear away the dead weight, corruption, avarice and self pleasure this country has accumulated.
ReplyDeleteNever did buy any stocks, but glad I already bought their products. Do think I'll stock up on some more .223 and 7.62x39 starting immediately just in case....
Am I the only one who sees the irony in a President from Illinois ending slavery and ending a way and now another one from the same restoring slavery and bringing about another war? Maybe he'll move to the center, but I haven't seen any pigs fly by my window yet!
Anonymous at 11:35 pm:
ReplyDeleteNot so ironic if you note that first President you mentioned destroyed the existing c/Constitutional order in the process of achieving that result, plus e.g. cementing long term Northern economic hegemony.
True about both Lincoln and Barry O bring for federalism so maybe Obama is also the reincarnation of Lincoln!
ReplyDeleteIs there any evidence that Romney lost the election because enough Evangelicals or hardline conservatives didn't vote for him and presumably just didn't vote on the president? The evidence would be numbers that showed other issues/offices were voted on but the president vote count was lower.
ReplyDeletePerhaps that did happen, but I doubt it.
I am skeptical that conservatives failed to to turn out to vote. The real issue is that we have lost a generation who believe that anything that involves self-control or waiting has to be wrong.
ReplyDeleteMore than a generation, I'd say; I probably sound like a broken record, but Why Johnny Can't Read was published in 1955. I'll add that the wave of public "servant" unionization started shortly thereafter, as well as "Federal Aid to Education", which of course came with strings attached.
ReplyDeleteHere's an interesting observation on how the polity constantly changes: about three million die each year, about three million reach age 18. Not that the latter start voting reliably, but at whatever ages people start voting more regularly, all things being equal, there are 3 million new voters.
One other note about voting totals: you've got to weigh this by how hotly the state is contested. E.g. nationally I doubt much was spent by either side on California, which is not to say that the locals didn't due their usual activities (although in many cases the major effort would be for the primaries).
By the same token down here in SW Missouri there was serious state level effort (all futile, except for one office it was a statewide sweep for the Democrats, with the caveat our Governor didn't really need firing) but little national and little for state legislative and county offices---all those were Republicans running unopposed. The real election for them was of course in the primary, and we did e.g. turn out our sheriff, who did not "play well with others" in the county government.
I am skeptical that conservatives failed to to turn out to vote.
ReplyDeleteLook at this essay and follow the link to the item on the Virginia GOTV effort and it'll get more credibility.
HT the Instapundit.
I haven't read the essay hga mentions but if conservatives didn't vote for Romney because they didn't like it then they made a foolish calculation.
ReplyDeleteYes he has his flaws and in many ways is no different than O but how is keeping O in for another 4 years better? To insure that the economy will collapse sooner and we can then pick up the pieces?
Coming back to this a year later:
ReplyDelete" I hope young people look forward to a future with expensive but available health insurance, but no jobs."
Looks like they won't even get that much.